Education

Order Materials to Use in Your Classroom

Cattle Country

The Cattle Country kids activity booklet is a four page full color booklet that has a variety of activities and information about the cattle industry. You can print out a copy from the link below or contact us to order a class set for FREE. Supplies limited.

Life on a Cattle Ranch:
A Child’s Perspective DVD

Local ranch children tell the story about life on the ranch, while a series of photographs and video clips are shown. Please visit our Beef Promotion Store to order a copy or click the Order link below.

See the attached pdf with more supplemental activities.

Print Lessons and Materials to Use in Your Classroom

Below are a variety of lessons that can be used by a teacher or guest speaker in a classroom to teach about beef and the cattle industry. Most of the lessons have reproducible worksheets ready to copy and use.

A set of lessons to teach about cowboy tools and equipment. The activities include completing a KWL chart about cowboy equipment, a “race” game to create a cowboy, and a memory game to play in small groups. Follow up with creating their own cowboy gear!

A lesson that relates branding to student’s lives. The students learn to read brands and then create their own brands and practice “marking” their papers for the day. Follow up with The Round Up Game for a fun application of branding.
Target Audience: K-4th

A sequence of lesson plans for teaching about the unique job that cattle perform . . . turn grass into meat . . . a product that humans can eat! The lessons include a fun anticipatory set to grab the students attention and an “equation” model of how we get the food we eat.Target Audience: K – 3rd

A set of lessons to show the diverse products that cattle give to enrich our lives! The lessons include whole group activities, center activities, and a followup homework project.Target Audience: K-4th

Celebrated on March 2nd, Read Across America Day is a great opportunity to read a story to a classroom. See the attached tips for your read aloud and check out the book list listed on this page for ideas of great ranch books.

It is fun to laugh a bit at the innocent answers students can give to basic questions. However, what isn’t funny is the fact that too many of these answers go unchallenged. Education is the key to passing on our ranching heritage to the future generations. With less than 2% of the American population involved in raising our country’s food supply, basic knowledge of food production is being lost. By educating students about where their food comes from, they will better understand the issues of local history, natural resources, food chains, and local economies.

Here are a few actual classroom answers from students in Kern County . . .

Where does your hamburger for dinner come from?

“From the grocery store. I go there with my mom and we get all the food.”

- 1st grade student

“I get a hamburger at McDonald’s. They have really good ones with cheese.”

- Kindergarten student

“I think it comes from a cow. Do they get it out like milk?”

- 1st grade student

Some of the students other thoughts on ranch life and cattle . . .

“The ones with horns are the bulls. They are the mean ones that get you if you wear red.”

- 2nd grade student

“Cowboys always have guns...cause the cowboys with black hats on are the bad ones and the good ones have to shoot them.”

- 3rd grade student

“I don’t eat meat. It is all fat and nothing good. That’s why I am a veterinarian.”
(spelling is not incorrect - she stated veterinarian, not vegetarian)

- 1st grade student

“Yes, these cows (holsteins) give us milk.
And the ones in the next aisle (jerseys) give us chocolate milk.”